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Historic 1930 luxury yacht to set sail out of B.C. waters forever

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She has glided through the Great Bear Rainforest as grizzlies swiped salmon from streams. Amelia Earhart has walked across her warm teak deck, which hosted many extravagant cocktail parties. Her state rooms have welcomed celebrities such as Al Pacino.

But now, the Taconite, a 125-foot luxury yacht built in 1930 for the founder of Boeing Aircraft, has been sold to a foreign buyer, which has mariners worried she could sail out of B.C. waters forever.

The Taconite’s owner, Capt. Gordon Levett, listed her for sale for $2.5 million in 2015.

Since then, Kristina Long, a Taconite admirer who has captained other classic boats, has been trying to find a local buyer to prevent losing a B.C. treasure. Long had connected Levett with one potential Vancouver buyer who was thrilled by her pitch to re-establish the Taconite as a historical vessel, a sort of floating museum docked in Vancouver and available for luxury charter trips. However, in June, a French buyer swooped in before they could close the deal.

Long was gutted and she contacted Heritage Canada, Canada Border Services Agency and several Greater Victoria MLAs in an attempt to prevent an export permit from being issued.

So far, her efforts have been in vain.

“A lot of our wooden vessels here on the west coast that carry historical value, they get purchased and shipped out and then they’re gone forever,” Long said.

“That ship has always been in Canada,” said Jim Walters, the Taconite’s chief engineer since 1993.

The yacht was built in Coal Harbour in 1930 as a pleasure craft for aviation pioneer William Boeing. The vessel, made out of Burmese teak, has five staterooms, a formal dining room and a salon with a wood-burning fireplace.

Its launch on June 11, 1930, attracted socialites and the well-heeled from across the Pacific Northwest. Amelia Earhart was a guest on the Taconite before her ill-fated attempt to circumnavigate the globe in 1937.

The Taconite carried Boeing’s first series of two-way radio communications, which he developed for his mail-carrying sea planes. It was from Taconite’s radio room, dubbed the “Texan” room, that Boeing carried out tests of initial transmissions, said Long, who has been researching the Taconite’s history through the Vancouver Archives.

Before the Second World War ended, Taconite was the first recreational vessel to operate with a ship’s radar in North America.

William and Bertha Boeing would spend summers cruising to Alaska. Often, William Boeing would take a float plane to catch up with the boat as it floated off Alaska.

“Bertha Boeing was the real boater in the family,” Levett told the Times Colonist. “She loved it, she was away on it from start to finish of the summer season.”

“It’s probably the most prominent pleasure boat [in B.C.]” Levett said.

Long said the ship is a living historical artifact, with original oil paintings and furniture dating to the late 1920s and early 1930s. Also kept with the boat are original build ledgers, work orders, dinner invitations and guest books signed by notable socialite families invited to cruise aboard the vessel.

Walters was hired as chief engineer in 1993 based on his expertise restoring and servicing luxury classic cars. Walters had been enthralled with the Taconite since his 20s, when he spotted her gliding through Desolation Sound while he was in a rowboat.

“I remember rowing alongside it, looking inside the brass porthole and being amazed by it, never believing that one day in the future I’d be running it,” he said.

Walters was the on-board engineer when the yacht was chartered out by anyone who could afford the $37,000-US-a-week price tag.

The yacht would cruise through the Inside Passage to Alaska, which at a leisurely speed of 12 knots, takes about three weeks. “It’s like you’re back in another era,” Walters said. “Time slows down. It’s really something.”

During one venture into the Great Bear Rainforest, Walters and the passengers watched grizzly bears hunt for salmon from a stream just seven metres away.

The Taconite provided a floating hotel for Al Pacino, Hilary Swank and Robin Williams in 2001 when they were in Alaska shooting scenes for the psychological thriller Insomnia.

Walters estimates he spent 700 hours rebuilding the starboard engine, an old Atlas-Imperial diesel engine, after a failure in 1994.

A lot of work goes into maintaining the ship, Walters said. Every few years, the teak floors need to be varnished, and the boat needs to be put into drydock to paint the hull.

The Taconite spent most of her days docked in Coal Harbour and Port Moody, but for the past year has been berthed in Maple Bay.

Prior to the latest sale, the yacht had only changed hands twice since Boeing built it: once in 1977 when the Boeing estate sold it to a man named Daryl Brown, and once in 1987 when it was sold to Levett, the former owner of the Pacific Coast Lines bus company. Levett restored the boat under the guidance of Bill Boeing Jr.

“It’s been in the Pacific Northwest all its life,” Levett told the Puget Sound Business Journal in 2015 after the boat was put up for sale. “And that’s where we hope to keep it.”

Levett acknowledges that the decision to remove the boat from B.C. waters is not a popular one.

“[The new owners] are meeting with quite a bit of opposition, I think, to taking it away from Canada, from this northwest area,” he said.

Levett said he would have liked to see the boat stay in Canada. However, he said there were only a few interested buyers and he sold to the one who made the best offer. The boat was sold for close to $1 million.

Levett, 78, told the Times Colonist he doesn’t know where the new owners will take the boat. Walters has been told that the plan is to take the Taconite to New York for retrofitting before it sails down to the Bahamas.

Both Walters and Long worry the heat and humidity will be harmful to the wooden boat. “A boat like that in the Bahamas is going to be destroyed in a couple of years,” Walters said.

Neither Walters nor Levett have been told when the new owners plan to collect this floating piece of B.C. history.

It’s a day Walters and Long are dreading.

“I’m just sick about it leaving,” Walters said.

“There are very few of the large classics left,” Long said. “This is the last one in B.C.”

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Historical Summary:

Launched in 1930, the classic yacht Taconite is one of the oldest, largest and best preserved teak-hulled motor yachts, built on the West Coast in the early decades of the last century. Commissioned by William E. Boeing, the founder of Boeing Aircraft, as a private pleasure yacht which served his family for the next 47 years. 

The interior is reminiscent of a thirties luxury hotel, comprising four staterooms all with en-suites. The main saloon is built for relaxation and furnished with much of the original furniture and connects to the aft deck with a wet bar and a great vantage point for enjoying the passing scenery. The formal dining room can comfortably accommodate 10 guests. The large, beautiful teak decks are perfect for sun tanning, outdoor activities or a great casual dining experience. Taconite is a legend known up and down the coast, a home to modern nobility and film stars.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

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TACONITE is a 38.1 m Motor Yacht, built in Canada by Boeing and delivered in 1930.

Her top speed is 12.0 kn and she boasts a maximum range of 1320.0 nm when navigating at cruising speed, with power coming from two Atlas Imperial diesel engines. She can accommodate up to 8 guests, with 5 crew members waiting on their every need. She has a gross tonnage of 289.45 GT and a 7.32 m beam.

She was designed by Thomas Halliday , who also completed the naval architecture. Thomas Halliday has designed 1 yacht and created the naval architecture for 1 yacht for yachts above 24 metres.

TACONITE is in the top 30% by LOA in the world. She is one of 1132 motor yachts in the 35-40m size range, and, compared to similarly sized motor yachts, her volume is 22.67 GT above the average.

Specifications

• Name: TACONITE
• Yacht Type: Motor Yacht
• Yacht Subtype: Classic Yacht
• Builder: Boeing
• Naval Architect: Thomas Halliday
• Exterior Designer: Thomas Halliday
• Refits: 1994-01-01

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'This boat belongs in Canada': Yacht nerds fret over sale of historic B.C. vessel

The sale of the Taconite means the 1930s teak 'jewel' commissioned by William Boeing and built in Vancouver is poised to leave Canadian waters

Article content

Gordie Levett’s first job was paperboy, dragging a canvas bag full of afternoon editions of the Vancouver Province around his West Vancouver neighbourhood. Levett had his regular customers, the tippers, the cheapskates and the in-betweens, but the most memorable was Perth McIntyre, a slim, slow-talking, white-haired sea captain. McIntyre’s home overlooked the water. The boat he captained was the Taconite, the finest private yacht in the Pacific Northwest, commissioned by William Boeing, the Seattle aviation pioneer whose company built seaplanes — and classic wooden yachts — in the old Boeing plant on Vancouver’s waterfront in the 1930s.

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“When the Taconite was coming and going it would go right by the McIntyre house in West Vancouver,” Levett says. “Captain McIntyre would blow the boat’s horn, as if to say, ‘See you later.’ That memory always stuck with me. My family lived near the water, so I was always around boats, and one day I bought a boat and then I bought a bigger boat — and then a bigger boat.”

'This boat belongs in Canada': Yacht nerds fret over sale of historic B.C. vessel Back to video

The former paperboy grew up to be president of Pacific Coach Lines, a bus service operating between Vancouver and Victoria, and in 1987 he bought the Taconite — for a sum he declines to disclose. Levett sold the boat in June to a mysterious foreign buyer for an equally mysterious sum (rumoured to be $1 million), triggering a panic among Taconite’s old deckhands and classic yacht-loving B.C. captains — including Levett himself — who fear that a West Coast jewel is poised to sail away for good.

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“If we lose the Taconite, we lose a piece of our Maritime history,” says Kristina Long, a captain and yacht nerd with an encyclopedic knowledge of key facts relating to the Taconite. For instance, when she was being built in 1929-30, the Boeings kept 78 Canadians working full tilt even as the Great Depression hit. Long rhymes off some other facts: The 125-foot vessel is made of teak from the South Pacific; it was the first private yacht in North America to have radar; Boeing used the boat to help perfect the two-way radios he would adopt for his company’s U.S. airmail service; the boat cost US$421,000 to build (about US$6 million today) and once welcomed Amelia Earhart, the trailblazing flyer, as a guest not long before she disappeared.

Levett decided to sell Taconite in 2015, listing her for US$2.5 million. He was getting older — he is now 78 — and worried about her falling into disrepair. His wish was to find a Canadian buyer. Long approached Levett, promising him she would try to find a perfect match by leaning on the contacts she has made during 12 years in the luxury charter business, including the Westons of grocery store fame.

Long also pitched local angel investor groups on the idea that if they bought the boat, they could charter it out as Levett had done — only for double the $45,000 he charged. She knocked on every door. “I really thought I could find someone who would share the same enthusiasm and passion for Taconite,” Long says. She didn’t, at least not in time.

One Canadian who always dreamed of buying the Taconite is Jim Walters, an admitted car guy who restores antique vehicles for a living. He also loves boats and was Taconite’s chief engineer for 25 years. Unfortunately, a terrible fire at his car workshop wiped him out financially about a decade ago, and he still hasn’t fully recovered. Mechanically, Walters says, Taconite is a marvel, boasting twin California-made Atlas Imperial engines: grand old beasts, rife with moving parts — push rods, rocker arms and valves — that engine lovers get all lathered up about. “Everything is handmade,” he says. “It is all working — moving — so it’s very kinetic. It is not just some big lump sitting there.”

Walters has heard whispers that the Boeings entertained several U.S. presidents aboard Taconite, but has never been able to confirm it. What he does know is that Bertha Boeing, William’s wife, was a gifted artist, who would sit on deck sketching the B.C. coast and the small Indigenous communities the Taconite stopped at during its annual summer run from Vancouver to the Alaskan salmon fishing grounds. In more contemporary times, funnyman Robin Williams came aboard, during the filming of the 2002 thriller, Insomnia, in Stewart, B.C. Its stars were housed on yachts anchored offshore. Williams had a boat, but his co-star Al Pacino — who drank cappuccino every morning, requesting that Walters, and only Walters, prepare them — had the Taconite. “Robin Williams asked me for a tour,” Walters says. “He was mesmerized by the engines and he was riffing, saying a lot of hilarious things about The Sand Pebbles, this old Steve McQueen movie.”

Walters worries the new owner, rumoured to be French and — according to unnamed sources at Maple Bay, the Vancouver Island marina where Taconite is moored — planning to relocate the boat to the Bahamas, doesn’t fully appreciate what he has bought.

“Taking Taconite from the Pacific Northwest to a climate where there are ship worms and pounding heat and sun is going to destroy the boat,” he says. “Boeing built her to cruise from Vancouver to Alaska, up the so-called Inside Passage, every year, to go fishing and explore. That is what this boat was built for. That is what it has done. That is what it should keep doing.”

The Boeing family sold the yacht in 1977. A decade later, Gordie Levett “stepped up to the plate,” as he likes to say, making her his own. He can’t understand why another Canadian wasn’t prepared to do the same. “This boat belongs in Canada,” he says. “But Canada had its chance, and nobody stepped up.” The mysterious new owner has apparently paid for the boat in full, but she is still moored at Levett’s dock in Maple Bay. “It’s the strangest thing,” he says. “I was told someone would be here for the boat in two weeks. Well, it’s been three months now. I am not really sure what to think.”

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'This boat belongs in Canada': Yacht nerds fret over sale of historic B.C. vessel Taconite

The sale of the Taconite means the 1930s teak 'jewel' commissioned by William Boeing and built in Vancouver is poised to leave Canadian waters

Article content

Gordie Levett’s first job was paperboy, dragging a canvas bag full of afternoon editions of the Vancouver Province around his West Vancouver neighbourhood. Levett had his regular customers, the tippers, the cheapskates and the in-betweens, but the most memorable was Perth McIntyre, a slim, slow-talking, white-haired sea captain. McIntyre’s home overlooked the water. The boat he captained was the Taconite, the finest private yacht in the Pacific Northwest, commissioned by William Boeing, the Seattle aviation pioneer whose company built seaplanes — and classic wooden yachts — in the old Boeing plant on Vancouver’s waterfront in the 1930s.

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“When the Taconite was coming and going it would go right by the McIntyre house in West Vancouver,” Levett says. “Captain McIntyre would blow the boat’s horn, as if to say, ‘See you later.’ That memory always stuck with me. My family lived near the water, so I was always around boats, and one day I bought a boat and then I bought a bigger boat — and then a bigger boat.”

'This boat belongs in Canada': Yacht nerds fret over sale of historic B.C. vessel Taconite Back to video

The former paperboy grew up to be president of Pacific Coach Lines, a bus service operating between Vancouver and Victoria, and in 1987 he bought the Taconite — for a sum he declines to disclose. Levett sold the boat in June to a mysterious foreign buyer for an equally mysterious sum (rumoured to be $1 million), triggering a panic among Taconite’s old deckhands and classic yacht-loving B.C. captains — including Levett himself — who fear that a West Coast jewel is poised to sail away for good.

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“If we lose the Taconite, we lose a piece of our Maritime history,” says Kristina Long, a captain and yacht nerd with an encyclopedic knowledge of key facts relating to the Taconite. For instance, when she was being built in 1929-30, the Boeings kept 78 Canadians working full tilt even as the Great Depression hit. Long rhymes off some other facts: The 125-foot vessel is made of teak from the South Pacific; it was the first private yacht in North America to have radar; Boeing used the boat to help perfect the two-way radios he would adopt for his company’s U.S. airmail service; the boat cost US$421,000 to build (about US$6 million today) and once welcomed Amelia Earhart, the trailblazing flyer, as a guest not long before she disappeared.

Levett decided to sell Taconite in 2015, listing her for US$2.5 million. He was getting older — he is now 78 — and worried about her falling into disrepair. His wish was to find a Canadian buyer. Long approached Levett, promising him she would try to find a perfect match by leaning on the contacts she has made during 12 years in the luxury charter business, including the Westons of grocery store fame.

Long also pitched local angel investor groups on the idea that if they bought the boat, they could charter it out as Levett had done — only for double the $45,000 he charged. She knocked on every door. “I really thought I could find someone who would share the same enthusiasm and passion for Taconite,” Long says. She didn’t, at least not in time.

One Canadian who always dreamed of buying the Taconite is Jim Walters, an admitted car guy who restores antique vehicles for a living. He also loves boats and was Taconite’s chief engineer for 25 years. Unfortunately, a terrible fire at his car workshop wiped him out financially about a decade ago, and he still hasn’t fully recovered. Mechanically, Walters says, Taconite is a marvel, boasting twin California-made Atlas Imperial engines: grand old beasts, rife with moving parts — push rods, rocker arms and valves — that engine lovers get all lathered up about. “Everything is handmade,” he says. “It is all working — moving — so it’s very kinetic. It is not just some big lump sitting there.”

Walters has heard whispers that the Boeings entertained several U.S. presidents aboard Taconite, but has never been able to confirm it. What he does know is that Bertha Boeing, William’s wife, was a gifted artist, who would sit on deck sketching the B.C. coast and the small Indigenous communities the Taconite stopped at during its annual summer run from Vancouver to the Alaskan salmon fishing grounds. In more contemporary times, funnyman Robin Williams came aboard, during the filming of the 2002 thriller, Insomnia, in Stewart, B.C. Its stars were housed on yachts anchored offshore. Williams had a boat, but his co-star Al Pacino — who drank cappuccino every morning, requesting that Walters, and only Walters, prepare them — had the Taconite. “Robin Williams asked me for a tour,” Walters says. “He was mesmerized by the engines and he was riffing, saying a lot of hilarious things about The Sand Pebbles, this old Steve McQueen movie.”

Walters worries the new owner, rumoured to be French and — according to unnamed sources at Maple Bay, the Vancouver Island marina where Taconite is moored — planning to relocate the boat to the Bahamas, doesn’t fully appreciate what he has bought.

“Taking Taconite from the Pacific Northwest to a climate where there are ship worms and pounding heat and sun is going to destroy the boat,” he says. “Boeing built her to cruise from Vancouver to Alaska, up the so-called Inside Passage, every year, to go fishing and explore. That is what this boat was built for. That is what it has done. That is what it should keep doing.”

The Boeing family sold the yacht in 1977. A decade later, Gordie Levett “stepped up to the plate,” as he likes to say, making her his own. He can’t understand why another Canadian wasn’t prepared to do the same. “This boat belongs in Canada,” he says. “But Canada had its chance, and nobody stepped up.” The mysterious new owner has apparently paid for the boat in full, but she is still moored at Levett’s dock in Maple Bay. “It’s the strangest thing,” he says. “I was told someone would be here for the boat in two weeks. Well, it’s been three months now. I am not really sure what to think.”

<em>• Email: <a href=”mailto:[email protected]”>[email protected]</a> | Twitter: <a href=”

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Minnesota Brown

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The good ship Taconite, flagship of empire built on Mesabi Range profits

The Taconite , Bill Boeing’s former yacht, now for sale, was built and launched with a fortune won from Mesabi Range land speculation. (PHOTO: Emerald Pacific Yachts )

Aaron J. Brown is an Iron Range blogger, author, radio producer and columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

For just shy of $1.3 million you could be the owner of yacht currently docked near Vancouver, British Colombia.

Made of virgin teak, this century-old wooden pleasure ship has been on the market a couple years. Apparently, today’s oligarch-on-the-go simply doesn’t have the time to maintain such an antique. I can distinctly recall my father’s frustration trying to restore and maintain my great-grandfather’s wooden speedboat. The boat seemed almost allergic to water, which was decidedly unhelpful.

But this craft in the Pacific Northwest is much more than a speedboat. And it’s been well cared for. At 125 feet of Depression-era opulence, this particular ship hosted billionaires and Congressmen, celebrities and the ruling class. It cost $421,000 to build in 1930, nearly $6 million in today’s dollars.

And its name is the Taconite. 

Who built it? Bill Boeing, founder of the Boeing Aircraft company and United Airlines. One of the most powerful businessmen of the 20th Century, and a titan of the Pacific Northwest, Boeing spent most of his free time piloting this yacht through the waters of Puget Sound. He died onboard in 1956. His ashes were scattered into the ocean from its deck.

So why would Boeing, an airplane man, name his custom-built yacht the Taconite ? Taconite, after all, is the low-grade iron ore mined here on the Mesabi Iron Range of Northern Minnesota. Outside of mining communities, “taconite” refers to the day of the week when tacos are served.

Well, it turns out that Boeing named his ship the Taconite because iron ore profits seeded his fortune.

From this Anders Clark article “ William Boeing: The Story of a Visionary Aircraft Manufacturer “:

His father, Wilhelm, came from a respected and well-to-do German family. However, at the age of 20, after serving a year in the German military, young Wilhelm decided he was going to leave his hometown in Hohenlimburg and emigrate to the United States to seek adventure and his fortune. He found work as a farm laborer, but soon met and joined forces with Karl Ortmann, a lumberman, and his future father-in-law. Wilhelm bought a large section of timberland, and the associated mineral rights, in Minnesota’s Mesabi Range, the first of many such purchases that established him as a timber and mining baron.

The Boeing mine was located in what is now the Hull-Rust mine pit north of Hibbing, Minnesota. Wilhelm Boeing grew tired of the timber business and moved west, but retained the mineral rights. The mine was later operated by Cleveland Cliffs from 1919 to 1928.

The elder Boeing died young, at the age of 42. His fortune paid for an elite education (and elite networking connections) for Bill Boeing. When Wilhelm’s widow Marie died she left their son Bill $1 million. He used that money to start his company building boats, the same year the Wright Brothers flew their first working airplane at Kitty Hawk.

Boeing took an immediate interest in airplanes. He bought one as soon as he could, hastily learned to fly, and piloted his plane cross country. When he crash landed back home, he lacked patience to wait for new parts. So he and his partner tore the plane apart and learned how to build it even better. The rest is history.

Meantime, Boeing commissioned his factory to build himself a yacht named for the iron ore that paid his way.

Canadian businessman Gordon Levett has owned the Taconite for more than 30 years, restoring it to its original condition. The yacht was for sale in 2015 for $2.5 million and  remains on the market  at a reduced price.

The story of Boeing’s Taconite reads as an interesting historical tale, but also a reminder that most of the spoils of generations of Mesabi Iron Range workers left Northern Minnesota. From the upper class  segregated neighborhoods of Boeing’s Seattle to the leather furniture of gentlemen’s clubs in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and New York, most of the profit from mining leaves the place where the rock is wrested from the Earth.

Always has.

That’s why the people of Northern Minnesota always had to fight for themselves.

We still do.

Aaron J. Brown is an author and college instructor from northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. He writes the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and hosts the Great Northern Radio Show on Northern Community Radio . This piece first appeared in the Sunday, May 7, 2017 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune .

Bill Boeing named his yacht Taconite for the fortune his father won on the Mesabi Iron Range, the same fortune that built the famous aircraft company in the Pacific Northwest. (PHOTO: Emerald Pacific Yachts)

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I was exploring going to Grand Marais via water last summer. You know, a cruise up the north shore from Duluth. Nothing out there. Now if I was an oligarch I would buy this vessel and do just that with it. Back and forth cruises up mother Superior’s north shore. But not on a retired school teachers salary.

Aaron, Well said. Seems like this should be on billboards all over the range as a reminder. Dan

“but also a reminder that most of the spoils of generations of Mesabi Iron Range workers left Northern Minnesota,……, most of the profit from mining leaves the place where the rock is wrested from the Earth. Always has.”

That’s the nature of mining, an extractive industry that sucks the life out of the land and the people who mine it.

Thanks for the Wilhelm Boeing information! Bill Boeing built two TALCONITE yachts. The first one in 1910 which was sold in 1921, then the second built in 1930. He also had a prize-winning jumper named Talconite in 1907 competing from his horse farm in Virginia. Your airplane information doesn’t seem accurate. Bill learned to fly during the summer of 1915 but was never an enthusiastic pilot. Bill knew his limitations. He was a capitalist, not a pilot. He hired pilots. Still searching for the year Wilhelm understood the value of the talconite he had purchased as lumber land. If you have some leads, I’d be appreciative!

Dear Sir, I just watched an interesting documentary on youtube about the Taconite and unfortunately it finished midway in with the vessel about to head south to California for sale. This sent me down a hole looking to find out what happened. Hence I find myself here on this page, still no answers to past but some info for the present. Any thing you could share would be appreciated Thankyou

Steve Australia

My wife and I we’re enjoying the weather and walking around Fishermans Terminal in Seattle. There was a very large yacht tied up there. I thought it was in rather poor condition. The name on the Taconite. I asked my wife why would anyone name a yacht after iron ore. When I got home I did some research and determined it was Bill Boeings old yacht. I hope who ever bought will be able to restore it.

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Vancouver luxury yacht a floating palace, made out of teak

There are a lot of luxury yachts in Vancouver. But there is only one Taconite, a floating palace that has just gone on the market for $2.5 million US. The 125-foot (38-metre) yacht was built in 1930 at a long-gone Boeing plant in Coal Harbour as a private yacht for William Boeing, the founder of the Seattle aircraft company.

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VANCOUVER -- There are a lot of luxury yachts in Vancouver. But there is only one Taconite, a floating palace that has just gone on the market for $2.5 million US.

The 125-foot (38-metre) yacht was built in 1930 at a long-gone Boeing plant in Coal Harbour as a private yacht for William Boeing, the founder of the Seattle aircraft company.

It cost $421,000 to build, at a time when many boats cost $1,000. Its launch on June 11, 1930 was the social event of the season, with over 100 bluebloods coming from across North America to check it out.

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Many of them were probably invited to be Bill and Bertha Boeing’s guests on leisurely cruises up the Inside Passage to Alaska.

“They’d leave for the summer,” said Doug Gregory, who looks after the yacht during the winter months. “In those days they had their flying boats (seaplanes). They had people fly in and fly out, just like we use modern floatplanes. The boat was a floating hotel that keeps on going.”

It still is.

VIEW MORE PHOTOS HERE , or if you're using a mobile app, tap the story image and swipe.

The Taconite has five large staterooms (bedrooms), three with ensuites, and a formal dining room with a table for 10. The salon (living room) is bigger than many condos, and comes with a wood-burning fireplace. The wall sconces and fittings in the passenger quarters are sterling silver, and there is more teak than you’ve ever seen in your life.

In fact, the ship is made out of old-growth teak. There is teak paneling, teak wainscoting, built-in teak cupboards, built-in teak bookshelves, teak coffered ceilings and teak flooring, all made from logs Boeing imported from Burma and milled in Vancouver.

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The boat was designed by Tom Halladay, and built at the Boeing Airplane and Hoffar Beeching plants in the 1900 block of West Georgia, just east of Stanley Park.

Hoffar Beeching was one of Vancouver’s top boat builders in the 1920s, producing local luxury yachts like the Fifer and the Deerleap. Boeing purchased the company when he decided to build flying boats in Vancouver in 1929.

The Taconite is now owned by Gordon Levett, who used to own the Pacific Coast Lines bus company. Levett has kept the yacht in mint shape, which is no small deal - every couple of years the exterior teak has to be given a fresh coat of varnish, and the boat put into drydock, so that the giant teak hull can be given a new coat of paint.

Levett sometimes works on the engine himself, and still likes to take the wheel and captain the vessel. But he’s in his mid-70s, and thinks it’s time to sell.

“I’ve seen people keep boats too long, then they get to where they can’t maintain them,” said Levett, who is the third owner of the boat.

“It will hopefully (go to) somebody who will carry on and maintain it, keep it looked after. It’s a piece that should never really be allowed to go to disarray.

“It’d be nice if it stayed in British Columbia, but I can’t be sure it will.”

In fact, the Taconite is listed for sale with Emerald Pacific Yachts in Seattle. But it has always been registered in Vancouver, and is currently in storage at a local marina, a stone’s throw from Jimmy Pattison’s boat.

Levett isn’t just the Taconite’s owner, he’s also the boat’s historian.

“I have drawer-fulls of history of the vessel,” he said by the phone from Palm Springs. “I have all the log books, from Volume 1, and there’s probably a hundred and some odd of them.”

The boat is named after a low grade of iron ore. Boeing is associated with planes, but the family fortune began in logging and mining.

In the 1880s, Bill Boeing’s father Wilhelm bought some timber lands near Hibbing, Minnesota. But he found you couldn’t use a compass over the land, because of all the taconite just below the surface.

A geologist suggested that there might be high-grade iron ore below the taconite.

“And there was, big time,” said Levett. “That’s where the (Boeing) money came from, out of mining.”

Bill Boeing was born in Detroit, but moved to Washington state when he was 22. He built his first aircraft – a biplane seaplane – in 1915.

By 1929, the Boeing website said the company “included several airlines, aircraft manufacturers, engine and propeller manufacturers, and a school for pilots and maintenance personnel in California.”

Boeing celebrated his success by building one of the most luxurious yachts on the west coast.

He would cruise around the Gulf Islands or up the Inside Passage for weeks or months at a time, running his businesses from the “Texan Room,” an office on the top deck of the ship. A radio room next door relayed his instructions back to Seattle.

In Boeing’s era, the Taconite had a crew of 10; today Levett runs it with four or five. You can rent it, fully staffed, for $45,000 a week.

Boeing’s old office is now a stateroom, and the radio room an ensuite washroom, but by and large it’s still very 1930.

The helm of the ship is drop-dead gorgeous, with teak paneled walls and all sorts of vintage equipment, including a brass wheel for electric steering and a wooden one for manual. It still has the original depth sounder, a chart table packed with maps of the coast, and a 1940s radar system.

“Everything in here operates,” said Gregory, who took the Sun on a tour.

“(But there are) a few modern things, such as single lever engine room controls, so you don’t have to have somebody in the engine room. In the old days, an engineer had to be in the engine room (when you were underway), you telegraphed him to make a command.”

The Taconite is powered by two enormous Atlas Imperial engines from the 1930s. Oddly, the engines only put out 220 horsepower.

“In the old days they didn’t worry about horsepower, it was mass and torque,” Gregory explained.

The top speed is 12 knots, which makes for a relaxing trip.

“For me it’s a wonderful pace,” said Gregory, who is captain of another, more modern yacht.

“It’s a very slow pace compared to a modern yacht, where I’m going along at 15 knots and everything is kind of high-paced. This is great, you get into the rhythm of this boat very very quickly.”

Asked how miles to the gallon it gets, Gregory smiled.

“It burns probably about 12 gallons an hour,” he said. “It’s a very economical boat, surprisingly enough. It takes thimbles full of fuel compared to a new yacht that would take 180 gallons an hour.”

It’s also a lot smaller than the new breed of super yacht. Paul Allen’s yacht Olympus, for example, is 414 feet (126 metres) long, has a crew of 80, and reportedly cost $200 million US.

The vintage theme carries over to the galley, where the original 1930 Universal Cooler wall refrigeration system is still in place. Cooking is done on a Garland gas stove, which has been converted to propane.

The porthole windows are larger than normal, because Bill Boeing was a big man and wanted to be able to squeeze through them in a pinch. The Taconite also has old-fashioned “Pullman windows” which slide up and down, like on a train.

There’s a beautiful little outdoor seating area behind the salon where guests can sit and watch the wake produced by the boat as it skims the waters.

“All you see is two strips of foam out the back,” said Gregory.

“It’s a very popular place in the summer; it’s the most beautiful place you can imagine. Mrs. Boeing used to spend her days back here.”

And so can you, if you have $2.5 million US to buy it.

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Taconite - BOEING

Specifications

• All Specifications

Basic Information

Builder: BOEING Category: Motor Yacht Model Year: 1930 Year Built: 1930

LOA: 125' (38.1mm) Beam: 25 Max Draft: 10' (3.05mm)

Speed, Capacities and Weight

Cruise Speed: 12 Knots Kts. (14 MPH)

Accommodations

Total Heads: 4

Hull and Deck Information

Hull Material: Wood

Engine Information

"Taconite" is a 125 foot luxury yacht built specifically for sailing the spectacular coasts in the Pacific Northwest.  Experience fine craftsmanship of a bygone era of yacht building- "Taconite" is constructed of teak on cypress ribs, with teak decking.  She can accommodate ten guests in five staterooms; including a large master suite with an en-suite bath.  Two of the guest staterooms include a bath en-suite, one with a shower.  The yacht's crew has their own separate berthing area in the fore ship lower deck ahead of the engine room.  The large Salon has ample viewing windows is a comfortable place to sit back and relax, watching the beautiful scenery glide past, read a good book or simply visit and enjoy the company. The covered aft deck is a spacious area to sit and enjoy the ocean wildlife on the way to your destination. The dining room with fine linens and wood high-backed chairs is adorned with intricate patterned rug and beautiful brass portholes. The Boeing family commissioned this yacht and was launched in 1930-and this vintage Classic continues to carry with her the aura of the time she was built.

Yacht name «Taconite» – BOEING

Motor Yacht  «Taconite» built by manufacturer BOEING in 1930 — available for sale. If you are looking to buy a yacht «Taconite» or need additional information on the purchase price of this BOEING, please call: +1-954-274-4435 (USA)

Only deal with professionals!

Taconite Yacht, Built For William E. Boeing, For Sale (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

A luxury yacht originally built for the founder of Boeing Aircraft is now being sold in Vancouver.

Named the Taconite, this 125-foot teak yacht was launched 85 years ago and is on the market for $2.5 million USD.

With the sale being handled by Emerald Pacific Yachts , the Taconite can accommodate up to 10 guests in five rooms; there's a large salon, spacious deck, and dining room complete with brass portholes.

Commissioned in Vancouver by Seattle-based William E. Boeing, the vessel stayed in his family for 47 years. It was rumoured to be the largest privately owned yacht in Canadian waters back in 1930, and its launch celebration was billed as noteworthy by many newspapers at the time.

Vancouver's Capt. Gordon Levett has owned the yacht since 1987, according to Puget Sound Business Journal, and restored it under the guidance of Bill Boeing Jr.

"It's been in the Pacific Northwest all its life," Levett told the paper. "And that's where we hope to keep it."

The Taconite was "built specifically for sailing the spectacular coasts in the Pacific Northwest," according to dealers at Emerald Pacific Yachts, and carries "with her the aura of the time she was built."

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Taconite Yacht For Sale, Vancouver

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A General Description of Motor Yacht TACONITE

Boeing Aircraft Co Of Canada completed the building motor yacht TACONITE in 1930. Accordingly, she can be categorised as having been built country of Canada. TACONITE had yacht design work finished by Thomas Halliday and Thomas Halliday. This superyacht TACONITE is able to sleep overnight a maximum of 10 aboard and 6 professional crew.

Construction & Naval Architecture relating to Luxury Yacht TACONITE

Thomas Halliday was the naval architecture company involved in the professional superyacht plans for TACONITE. Also the company Thomas Halliday successfully worked on this project. Canada is the country that Boeing Aircraft Of Canada built their new build motor yacht in. After her official launch in 1930 in Vancouver Bc she was afterwards released to the owner following final finishing. Her hull was constructed with wooden. The motor yacht superstructure is made for the most part with wood. With a beam of 7.32 metres / 24 ft TACONITE has reasonable size. A fairly shallow draught of 2.68m (8.8ft) selects the number of worldwide marinas she can enter, taking into account their individual depth. She had refit improvement and modification carried out in 1994.

Engineering And The Speed/Range The M/Y TACONITE :

For propulsion TACONITE has twin screw propellers. The engine of the yacht generates 220 horse power (or 162 kilowatts). She is fitted with 2 engines. The total output for the boat is 440 HP or 324 KW.

With Superyacht TACONITE There is Passenger Accommodation Potential:

Apportioning space for a limit of 10 visiting passengers overnighting, the TACONITE accommodates everyone comfortably. She also utilises approximately 6 capable crew to operate.

A List of the Specifications of the TACONITE:

Miscellaneous yacht details.

This motor yacht has a wood deck.

TACONITE Disclaimer:

The luxury yacht TACONITE displayed on this page is merely informational and she is not necessarily available for yacht charter or for sale, nor is she represented or marketed in anyway by CharterWorld. This web page and the superyacht information contained herein is not contractual. All yacht specifications and informations are displayed in good faith but CharterWorld does not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the current accuracy, completeness, validity, or usefulness of any superyacht information and/or images displayed. All boat information is subject to change without prior notice and may not be current.

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Vessel that carried Hollywood royalty, doomed aviatrix slated to leave B.C. forever

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She has glided through the Great Bear Rainforest as grizzlies swiped salmon from streams. Amelia Earhart has walked across her warm teak deck, which hosted many extravagant cocktail parties. Her state rooms have welcomed celebrities such as Al Pacino.

But now, the Taconite, a 125-foot luxury yacht built in 1930 for the founder of Boeing Aircraft, has been sold to a foreign buyer, which has mariners worried she could sail out of B.C. waters forever.

The Taconite’s owner, Capt. Gordon Levett, listed her for sale for $2.5 million in 2015.

Since then, Kristina Long, a Taconite admirer who has captained other classic boats, has been trying to find a local buyer to prevent losing a B.C. treasure. Long had connected Levett with one potential Vancouver buyer who was thrilled by her pitch to re-establish the Taconite as a historical vessel, a sort of floating museum docked in Vancouver and available for luxury charter trips. However, in June, a French buyer swooped in before they could close the deal.

Long was gutted and she contacted Heritage Canada, Canada Border Services Agency and several Greater Victoria MLAs in an attempt to prevent an export permit from being issued.

So far, her efforts have been in vain.

“A lot of our wooden vessels here on the west coast that carry historical value, they get purchased and shipped out and then they’re gone forever,” Long said.

“That ship has always been in Canada,” said Jim Walters, the Taconite’s chief engineer since 1993.

The yacht was built in Coal Harbour in 1930 as a pleasure craft for aviation pioneer William Boeing. The vessel, made out of Burmese teak, has five staterooms, a formal dining room and a salon with a wood-burning fireplace.

Its launch on June 11, 1930, attracted socialites and the well-heeled from across the Pacific Northwest. Amelia Earhart was a guest on the Taconite before her ill-fated attempt to circumnavigate the globe in 1937.

The Taconite carried Boeing’s first series of two-way radio communications, which he developed for his mail-carrying sea planes. It was from Taconite’s radio room, dubbed the “Texan” room, that Boeing carried out tests of initial transmissions, said Long, who has been researching the Taconite’s history through the Vancouver Archives.

Before the Second World War ended, Taconite was the first recreational vessel to operate with a ship’s radar in North America.

William and Bertha Boeing would spend summers cruising to Alaska. Often, William Boeing would take a float plane to catch up with the boat as it floated off Alaska.

“Bertha Boeing was the real boater in the family,” Levett told the Times Colonist. “She loved it, she was away on it from start to finish of the summer season.”

“It’s probably the most prominent pleasure boat [in B.C.]” Levett said.

Long said the ship is a living historical artifact, with original oil paintings and furniture dating to the late 1920s and early 1930s. Also kept with the boat are original build ledgers, work orders, dinner invitations and guest books signed by notable socialite families invited to cruise aboard the vessel.

Walters was hired as chief engineer in 1993 based on his expertise restoring and servicing luxury classic cars. Walters had been enthralled with the Taconite since his 20s, when he spotted her gliding through Desolation Sound while he was in a rowboat.

“I remember rowing alongside it, looking inside the brass porthole and being amazed by it, never believing that one day in the future I’d be running it,” he said.

Walters was the on-board engineer when the yacht was chartered out by anyone who could afford the $37,000-US-a-week price tag.

The yacht would cruise through the Inside Passage to Alaska, which at a leisurely speed of 12 knots, takes about three weeks. “It’s like you’re back in another era,” Walters said. “Time slows down. It’s really something.”

During one venture into the Great Bear Rainforest, Walters and the passengers watched grizzly bears hunt for salmon from a stream just seven metres away.

The Taconite provided a floating hotel for Al Pacino, Hilary Swank and Robin Williams in 2001 when they were in Alaska shooting scenes for the psychological thriller Insomnia.

Walters estimates he spent 700 hours rebuilding the starboard engine, an old Atlas-Imperial diesel engine, after a failure in 1994.

A lot of work goes into maintaining the ship, Walters said. Every few years, the teak floors need to be varnished, and the boat needs to be put into drydock to paint the hull.

The Taconite spent most of her days docked in Coal Harbour and Port Moody, but for the past year has been berthed in Maple Bay.

Prior to the latest sale, the yacht had only changed hands twice since Boeing built it: once in 1977 when the Boeing estate sold it to a man named Daryl Brown, and once in 1987 when it was sold to Levett, the former owner of the Pacific Coast Lines bus company. Levett restored the boat under the guidance of Bill Boeing Jr.

“It’s been in the Pacific Northwest all its life,” Levett told the Puget Sound Business Journal in 2015 after the boat was put up for sale. “And that’s where we hope to keep it.”

Levett acknowledges that the decision to remove the boat from B.C. waters is not a popular one.

“[The new owners] are meeting with quite a bit of opposition, I think, to taking it away from Canada, from this northwest area,” he said.

Levett said he would have liked to see the boat stay in Canada. However, he said there were only a few interested buyers and he sold to the one who made the best offer. The boat was sold for close to $1 million.

Levett, 78, told the Times Colonist he doesn’t know where the new owners will take the boat. Walters has been told that the plan is to take the Taconite to New York for retrofitting before it sails down to the Bahamas.

Both Walters and Long worry the heat and humidity will be harmful to the wooden boat. “A boat like that in the Bahamas is going to be destroyed in a couple of years,” Walters said.

Neither Walters nor Levett have been told when the new owners plan to collect this floating piece of B.C. history.

It’s a day Walters and Long are dreading.

“I’m just sick about it leaving,” Walters said.

“There are very few of the large classics left,” Long said. “This is the last one in B.C.”

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Classic Motoryacht Hits The Market

• By Jake Lamb
• Updated: January 27, 2015

If you’ve ever thought of owning a luxury yacht built by a captain of industry, the 125-foot Taconite could be yours.

William E. Boeing, the founder of Boeing Aircraft, commissioned this classic craft, which launched in 1930. Taconite stayed in the Boeing family for 47 years and has cruised around the Northwest for over 70 years.

“The interior is reminiscent of a luxury hotel from the 1930s, comprising of four staterooms, each with ensuite baths,” Emerald Pacific Yachts said of the yacht. “The main salon is built for relaxation and furnished with much of the original furniture and connects to the afterdeck with a wet bar and a great vantage point for enjoying the passing scenery.”

Emerald Pacific Yachts has Taconite listed for $2.5 million.

It’s being reported that Taconite was the largest privately owned yacht in Canadian waters back in 1930, and her launch celebration was billed as noteworthy by many newspapers at the time.

Taconite Newspaper Image

Taconite has been owned by Capt. Gordon Levett of Vancouver since 1987. Levett restored the 125-foot yacht to her original grandeur under the guidance of Bill Boeing Jr.

“It’s been in the Pacific Northwest all its life,” Levett told the Puget Sound Business Journal , “and that’s where we hope to keep it.”

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The Taconite yacht was commissioned by William Boeing

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TACONITE, YACHT FOR CHARTER

INQUIRE ABOUT TACONITE

The 125ft  /38.1m  motor yacht, custom built in 1930 by Boeing of Canada and last refitted in 1994. Previously named Taconite II, she is a great choice for your next charter vacation with friends or family.

Taconite’s interior layout sleeps up to 10 guests in 5 rooms, including a master suite, 1 VIP stateroom, 1 double cabin and 2 twin cabins. She is also capable of carrying up to 5 crew onboard to ensure a relaxed luxury yacht experience. Timeless styling, beautiful furnishings and sumptuous seating feature throughout to create an elegant and comfortable atmosphere.

You’ll enjoy many leisure and entertainment facilities onboard, making her ideal for entertaining friends and family on your charter vacation. There’s plenty of space for enjoying an alfresco lunch or dinner on deck, or simply lounging in the sunshine and working on your tan.

She has a cruising speed of 11 knots, a maximum speed of 12 knots and a range of 1,320nm from her 15,897litre fuel tanks, she is the perfect combination of performance and luxury.

Air conditioning keeps conditions comfortable throughout the cabins, even on the warmest of days or nights.

CHARTER TACONITE

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Cafe del Mar

€30,000/wk 88.58ft /27m 7 Guests 3 Cabins 3 Crew

€65,000/wk 111.55ft /34m 8 Guests 4 Cabins 4 Crew

Important Business

85.30ft /26m 10 Guests 4 Cabins 4 Crew

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TACONITE Interior & Exterior Photos

38.1m  /  125' | boeing of canada | 1930 / 1994.

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NOTE to U.S. Customs & Border Protection

SIMILAR LUXURY YACHTS FOR CHARTER

Here are a selection of superyachts which are similar to Taconite yacht which are believed to be available for charter. To view all similar luxury charter yachts click on the button below.

35m | Feadship

from $65,000 p/week ♦︎

Antares of Britain

34m | Bolson & Son

from $35,000 p/week ♦︎

40m | Clelands Shipbuilding Co

from $82,000 p/week ♦︎

from $85,000 p/week ♦︎

38m | Feadship

from $80,000 p/week

34m | A&P Group

from $71,000 p/week ♦︎

34m | Feadship

from $59,000 p/week ♦︎

36m | Camper & Nicholsons

POA ♦︎

36m | Haarlemse Scheepsbouw

from $45,000 p/week ♦︎

39m | Benetti

from $76,000 p/week ♦︎

40m | Botje Ensing & Co

37m | Camper & Nicholsons

from $61,000 p/week ♦︎

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